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Honesty about selling online

Love my husband and his honesty – this is what he posted today in an Etsy forum

“I cannot remember any day in the past 3 years that we didn’t have a sale. Nici and I became serious in Dec 2011 and took our hobby shop of 50 sales to 28,000 sales over the past 3 years. There have been some very slow days and some gut wrenching weeks, where we thought the well ran dry and our luck was over, but Nici was never one to get beaten down for long. If any thinks it has been easy though, they are sadly mistaken. 12 hr work days, emotionally charged arguments, moments of despondent stares, and a good dose of extreme stress definitely have marked our way on this journey.

I am so angry when I see successful shops that don’t post in these forums. Shops with 20k, 30k, 50k, and 100k sales that make it all look so glorious and easy. There are way too many threads with folks quitting their day jobs or just hoping for sales looking at these shops with envy. Honestly, the journey is stupid hard and even now there’s still little comfort or security that the road ahead will be any easier. We also sell in Artfire, our own websites, Handmade Artist, and Ebay. There are so many days, when we say why? When we ask ourselves whether it could be easier when you shut the lights at 5pm and go home. Christmas time means sleeping on a mattress on the studio floor and working to 2am. The next day starts at 6am with a customer calling you on the phone and screaming that we are responsible for ruining Christmas when their gift was lost by the USPS. This is the real story of a successful shop.

Do I mean to discourage, not at all. Trust me, it is worth it. Back in Dec 2012 we had one day where we were the #2 shop in handmade items listed by craft count with 112 sales. All our competitors had shops with 5,6, or even 7 people working. We were just 2 dumb idiots one with a hammer, saw, and some metal stamps and the other with a laptop. That meant the world to us. Having a small business is beyond rewarding especially when you build it yourself. We were never featured on the front page, knew anyone on the inside, or compromised integrity. It was done through hard work.”